


No Power Over Me

by ninemoons42



Category: Inception (2010), Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Charity Auctions, Community: help_japan, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-03
Updated: 2011-05-03
Packaged: 2017-10-19 09:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/199369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Attraction, desire, a walk through a maze, and the Goblin King's power - luckily, Arthur knows just what to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Power Over Me

  
title: No Power Over Me  
author: [](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**ninemoons42**](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/)  
pairing: one-sided Arthur/Eames  
warnings: Arthur-centric, more BAMFery, and this time it's a crossover of Labyrinth and Inception.  
As I have not yet seen the film, I give thanks to my friends who patiently helped me with the details of the fic, especially where Jareth is concerned.  
This is my fic for [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/fred_bear/profile)[**fred_bear**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/fred_bear/) , who won me in Round One of the auctions at [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/help_japan/profile)[**help_japan**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/help_japan/). She wanted Arthur in the Labyrinth universe, finding Eames as Jareth. I've kind of taken the prompt a little bit sideways for this.  
disclaimer: I don't own the original story or the characters. Not making any profit, just playing in the sandbox.  
summary: Attraction, desire, a walk through a maze, and the Goblin King's power - luckily, Arthur knows just what to do.

  
Arthur still dreams, sometimes.

After the Fischer job and the shortest debrief ever - an email from Saito with one single link to a news article about the dissolution of Fischer-Morrow, and the word "Arigato" - he started seeing Mal in the dreams again.

Mal as she truly was, not the horrific Shade Dom Cobb had been carrying around in his subconscious: the way she'd always fidgeted with her hair; the impenetrable sense of humor; the knitting! - oh, how could he have forgotten her passion for knitting and the bemused smile that had always appeared on Miles's face whenever Mal and Arthur entered his office, PASIV and workbasket in tow. Mal presenting him with an extra-long scarf, a full twelve feet long; her voice laughing as she said, "Find someone who'll wear that with you."

[He still has that scarf, packed away carefully in a cloth-lined box, and he sometimes wears it in the coldest winter nights, though he has to loop it around his own neck several times.

No one has ever seen him wear it.]

Sometimes he dreams the levels for the Fischer job again: the rainy city and the reports from pistol and rifle and grenade launcher. The hotel, the gravity screw, the click-click of Ariadne's heels, the blonde walking by in her dress, her stormy gray eyes.

He asks Ariadne about the snow level, and he dreams up his own version of it: a mountain range, the distant fortress. He watches the security teams search for a man who cannot be found, and he watches the man pick off his enemies at his leisure, White Death in a driving snowstorm.

He's aware of the recurring themes, thank you very much; he's long since given up on doing anything about it.

He's taking it easy in one of his Chicago safehouses; he treats himself to pizza and beer and yogurt. He takes in the baseball and the basketball; he runs along the river every day. He thinks about retiring, but night after night he checks his crawlers and looks through his email, and he makes a list of potential jobs to take.

It's nice to be on vacation, especially when he hasn't been in at least two years.

A week passes, and Arthur starts to relax, and he finds himself forgetting about the Glock still strapped discreetly to his hip, and then the doorbell rings.

He draws quickly and peers out the peephole - at a woman in a UPS cap.

"Package for Mr. Timothy McGee?"

It's one of his backup aliases. Arthur transfers the Glock to his left hand, and opens the door.

"That's me."

"Sign here, please."

The package is from an online DVD store.

Arthur goes through the motions of receiving the package and then carefully opens it, with belatedly-gloved hands.

There's a card on top that says "To Pippa from Dad."

And Arthur snaps out his mobile phone and hits speed-dial. "Been using me as a drop point again, Dom?"

"What the - Arthur, oh _shit_ ," and Dom actually sounds embarrassed and apologetic.

Arthur does the only thing he can do under the circumstances:

He flips the phone to video-call mode and as soon as he can see Dom, he squints at him.

"I didn't teach you that," Dom says.

"Mal did," Arthur says.

"Jesus." But the expression that crosses the other man's face is an actual fond smile.

So Arthur drops the squint, and sighs. "So, _Labyrinth_ already for Pip? Isn't she a little too young? I don't think you'd like it if you found projections of Jareth running around in her mind."

"God, no," Dom says, and frowns. "It's the dress. She wants one of those, and she wants to know how to run around in it."

Arthur suddenly feels malicious. "Tell Pip to talk to Ariadne, she's a big fan of fashion and labels."

Either Dom is blushing or the color balance on the screen has gone wrong. "Can you just forward the DVD, Arthur? I'll try to think of a way to make it up to you."

"Dom?"

"Yes?" Now he does squint.

"Don't. Just don't."

Arthur hangs up, and laughs.

///

The next night, Arthur digs out his own DVD copy of the movie and cues it up for dinner: kosher hot dogs, mustard, and cornichons.

He laughs in all the right places, and he pauses from time to time, smiling at Hoggle and Ludo and Sir Didymus. He hums along to "As the World Falls Down". And he mouths along to both Sarah and Jareth in the climactic confrontation:

"Just fear me - love me - do as I say, and I will be your slave!"

"My kingdom as great...my kingdom as great.... You have no power over me!"

When the owl flies away, Arthur sighs, and gets up to do the dishes, and he sings along to "Underworld" as the credits roll.

///

Arthur isn't really surprised when he opens his eyes in his dream and immediately knows he's fallen right into the world of the movie.

He's not exactly amused to be dropped into the world as Sarah - though he has to admit, he's always wanted a shirt like hers. He ditches the vest easily enough - it's a marker now, a way of remembering where he started in the maze, and as he sets off, he looks back a couple of times to make sure the vest is still there, a puddle of cloth and pattern.

He's deep inside the labyrinth already, and he digs in his pockets and - yes, here is a tube of lipstick. Bright red and unused, he immediately writes on the wall: NPOM.

Someone laughs in the distance, long and mockingly.

From the other pocket he digs out a gun - and for some reason, it's one of Eames's guns. The H&K USP Compact sits in his hand comfortably, and it's chambered for his own preferred bullets, .45 ACP jacketed hollow point.

"Too much symbolism, damn it," Arthur mutters, but without any hostility. Then he holsters the gun and runs forward. At the first corner he stops and closes his eyes, and he turns left.

He runs, and he scribbles the same initials over and over again on the walls, and sometimes he picks up a loose pebble and hurls it in the direction of whoever the fuck is laughing at him.

He connects, once, and for once it's his laugh that echoes over the emptiness of the maze.

Because there's no one in there, for some reason, no challenges and no Bog of Eternal Stench. A few chickens here and there in the corners, but they run clucking away from him at his approach.

When Arthur turns a corner, pursuing the chickens, he suddenly finds himself on the steps to Jareth's castle.

He pulls out the lipstick for the last time - it's down to a stub - and he writes his own name on the bottom step.

On the next one up he writes Eames's name.

He doesn't really know why he does it, but he does it all the same.

And it's as if the dream has been waiting for him to do that, because as soon as he completes the S the doors of the castle swing open for him.

Arthur draws the gun, and steps inside.

Here is a stream at his feet. He throws in the spent lipstick and the tube floats for a moment before it's pulled under by the current.

The stream flows up and down a confusing corridor of staircases, and Arthur catches himself trying to follow the Escheresque loops of coming and going, watching the currents weave long, lazy paths, meandering up and down.

Movement in the corner of his eye and Arthur snaps back to mission mode, his hands tightening around the pistol.

There's a rustling in the shadows all around him and he eyes his surroundings warily, half-expecting a battalion of goblins to jump him at any moment.

And, there, flash of a tattered hem moving around a corner, a shadow moving on the wall around him - and Arthur leaps forward on silent feet. Eames's gun is a comfortable and comforting weight in his hand.

Footsteps ahead, and getting louder, and Arthur slows. Places his feet deliberately, willing himself to become soundless and stealthy. He's done this before, it's just another raid, it's an attack, and the person ahead of him is his target and he just needs to find him before he kills him -

"Hello, Arthur."

It's the Goblin King, and it's not.

It's Eames, and it's not.

The eyes and the crystal ball, the black gloves. The intricate jacket in overlapping scale-type segments, the cape lined in blue and the cloak of tattered silk.

He's familiar with all of that; he remembers the confrontations between Jareth and Sarah vividly.

But Jareth never had short hair, never had a plush mouth - and he never smiled so widely.

There is something of Eames behind those extravagantly made-up eyes, something of Eames in the smirk.

"You." Arthur says, and he relaxes his shoulders a little but he keeps his hands up, the gun sure and steady in his grip. "Some dream I'm having, to find you and Jareth all mixed up like this."

"Call me whatever you want, then," the Goblin King drawls. His fingers move restlessly, chasing invisible currents in the air. "I am always eager to please."

Arthur barks out a laugh. "Are you? I haven't even invoked you. What have I wished away, that I'm here?"

The Goblin King merely smiles. And negligently flicks his fingers in Arthur's direction.

A sudden pain blooms in Arthur's chest, and he drops hard to his knees.

Eames's smirk, upside-down, as Arthur wakes up from being tipped out of his chair. The tilt of Eames's head while presenting his strategy for inception, and his sidelong glances in Arthur's direction. _"You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling."_

The Goblin King tilts his head consideringly. "Now you're missing something. If you want it back, you know what must do.

"Just fear me - love me - do as I say, and I will be your slave. I will give you back what you've lost."

Arthur pauses for a long moment - and then he laughs in the Goblin King's face. Never mind questioning the strange logic of the dream, never mind the strange conglomeration of Jareth and Eames.

Hell, he's been dreaming of Eames for so long; he's been thinking of him all this time. As uneventful as the run through the Labyrinth had been, he knows it would have made him feel better to know that Eames had his back.

Arthur smiles. "I'm pretty sure you know this line already, whoever you are: You have no power over me.

"Because _he_ already does."

And he turns the gun on himself.

///

Arthur wakes up from the dream laughing so hard that he nearly drops himself off the bed.

His phone chirps twice: incoming email, to one of his most secure addresses.

 _Job in karachi, Ariadne on th way. U in?_

And Arthur smiles, and types in his response: _Yes._

He locates the scarf and places it in the bottom of his suitcase.

 **fin**   



End file.
